The Dun Cow is a small pub, with a tiny front bar and a slightly larger back room. It plays host to a range of local customers, and be not surprised if a game of dominoes is in progress when you visit. As for the drinks, the beer is excellent, Castle Eden, being the beer of choice on our vists but the Black Sheep looked pretty tempting too. The service is excellent - friendly, attentive and in complete control, dealing with drinks, food and over-enthusiastic locals, with aplomb and alacrity in a space that is smaller than some people's wardrobes. There's very cheap food, which sadly, we didn't try and a jolly, hearty buzz to the place. According to the local legend, a dun cow was responsible for the settlement of Durham, all we can say is, if it was anything like this Dun Cow, we're not at all surprised. The Dun Cow is an excellent local.

Outside the pub, there is a board with a menu, including homemade Chilli. At the bottom it says “Takeaway service available”. I thought this sounded nice, and was meaning to try it for a while. One day, I finally got round doing so, and I called the pub and asked to do a takeaway order. The woman said “yeah very funny, we’re a pub” so I said that I had seen the menu outside stating “takeaway service available”. The woman denied that this is the case; I assured her that I had seen it, so she asked a colleague if there was a board which said this outside. She said no! I explained that I was puzzled by this, and then the woman said that it means that if you don’t finish a coffee you can take it away [seriously? When it says “Takeaway service available” at the bottom of a food menu!], and she said that she would do a takeaway for me on this occasion. I said that I would like to try the Chilli, but then she said that it was not available so I would have to have pasta instead! The next day, I was passing the pub so I looked and guess what…the board was still there!

So to summarise, after thinking it looked like a nice pub and planning to takeaway their homemade Chilli at some point [which their board outside implies is possible], I was treated like a prank caller and then told it wasn’t available. What a shame to lose a potential customer like this! Very unpleasant people working there!

I'm not a beer or pub guy in general, but for music, Thursday nights at the Dun Cow are wonderful: from about 8.15, session of British & Irish trad music, including Northumbrian/Borders tunes, even a bit of medieval. Superb bagpipes, fiddle, mandolin etc etc. Don't miss it!